


Blessed is the Maker

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Whumptober 2020 [28]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Beating, Day 28, Fantastical Racism, Mugging, Violence, Whumptober 2020, the Dwarves are Jewish because I and Tolkien both said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27245314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: FIli is mugged on his way home from work.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947493
Kudos: 14
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Blessed is the Maker

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [aravenwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood) for her extreme kindness in being willing to beta all of these whumptober fills! Especially so since she's also writing her own (amazing!) fics too! Please go check her out and give her some love!!!

Fili trudges through the rain and the mud on his way home from the granary. Sacking up grain is menial work and it pays a pittance, but it puts food on the table for Kili and Amad, if only barely. Uncle Thorin has tried several times to get Fili on at the smithy, but they say that one dwarf is enough, anymore and the men of the area will start to suspect they’re soft on the refugees, no matter how good a product they turn out. 

But it’s the end of the week, and Fili puts the taunts and jabs of the men at the granary behind him. Tonight they’ll eat well and light candles and sing. Even Uncle Thorin, Dwalin, Balin, and maybe some of his more distant aunts, uncles, and cousins might join them. Fili smiles to himself as he imagines his amad’s cooking, on meals like these no corner is cut and the meat will be properly salted and seasoned, the bread made with butter and eggs, the wine fresh rather than mostly vinegar. 

He’s nearly out of town and his feet, tired and aching from a week of hard work, step lightly at the promise of home, despite the muddy road that’s been rutted by too many wagon wheels.

“Hey, dwarf!”

Fili stops and turns. He knows the man, Harlan, from the granary. He’s an arrogant man with a hatred of dwarrow, and only barely half Fili’s scant age, which is young, though still an adult by their standards. The problem is he’s not alone; four other young men that Fili’s seen about the town flank him. He knows immediately that there’s nothing good to be had in this encounter. 

“What do you want, Harlan?” Fili demands, his heavy dwarven boots firmly planted in the mud.

“Give us your pay,” Harlan growls. 

Fili chuckles darkly. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re going to regret that, you inbred half-wit!” Harlan shouts.

Two of the men Harlan has brought with him charge Fili, and he settles into a fighting stance the way Dwalin and Thorin have taught him. Two on one isn’t a huge disadvantage, especially as the first few blows are more like drunken brawling than proper fighting. It’s not too hard for Fili to sweep the feet out from under one and twist the other’s arm, bringing him to his knees.

“You’re in over your head, Harlan,” Fili roars, still twisting the man’s arm behind his back. He tweeks the arm, causing the man to yelp in pain, to punctuate his point.

“Joran! Cotter!” Harlan cries, and Harlan with his two other friends run for Fili.

Fili tosses his current opponent aside as hard as he can, hoping to stun him a bit. A moment later, he’s beset by men. For a minute or so, Fili holds his own, giving as good as he gets. But five to one is hardly a fair fight, and his height and shorter reach put him at a serious disadvantage. One lucky blow is all it takes to bring Fili down, and then Fili knows he’s lost. He curls in on himself to protect his stomach and wraps his hands over the back of his neck. Leather boots rain kicks over every inch of him, one slips between his elbows to land on his mouth and several others crush his fingers into his neck. 

When they finally stop, Fili doesn’t even try to stop them from taking the money. Any attempt to thwart them would only end in further beatings and Fili knows that they need no provocation to kill him. They take his coin and throw in another few kicks, before leaving him curled on the muddy road, rain washing the blood from his face into the dirty water beneath him.

All thoughts of family and dinner are gone. This home they’ve carved out for themselves, nestled among the Blue Mountains, though not in them, has never wanted them. Good times and happy memories sometimes cloud that reality, but Fili knows they’ll never be happy here, and they’ll never belong. 

Slowly, painstakingly, once Fili can no longer hear the voices of his attackers, Fili picks himself up out of the mud. His left side was in the mud during the attack and is more or less unharmed, but his right side burns with every breath. His fingers are swollen, barely able to bend, and blood drips steadily from his face where his brow and lips are split. Were there someplace to clean up before he reached home, Fili would do it despite his desire to get somewhere safe as soon as he can. 

As it is, what should have been a half hour walk, takes him almost double the time, and by the time he staggers in the door, Amad, Kili, and Uncle Thorin are already waiting.

“Nephew!” Thorin exclaims, racing for Fili.

Kili is hot on their uncle’s heels, and the both of them help Fili to a chair in the living room.

“Kili, go fetch Oin,” their Amad orders. Kili pauses a moment to look at Fili before dashing out the door without so much as his boots.

“Fili, what happened?” Thorin asks, his voice low. 

Fili drinks the water his amad offers him before answering. “One of the men from the granary brought some others from town, five in all. They beat me and stole my pay.”

Dis sits heavily in a chair, her head in her hands. “Nadad, we can’t keep living like this!” she cries. “My sons work for nothing more than silver pennies among men who act no better than wolves.”

“Dis-”

“No, Thorin. Balin has said we should make a home in the mountains — in them, not on them — and I think it’s time we listened. Tomorrow, I’m going to see him,” Dis declares imperiously. 

Thorin bows his head, though Fili knows it’s hardly a sign of submission. “Tomorrow is our day of rest, but the following morning I will speak with him. Does that suit you?”

Dis sighs. “I suppose it will have to.”

Fili says nothing. They’ve moved from temporary home to temporary home since before he was born, and while the thought of moving on yet again is not particularly exciting, he knows that there’s wisdom in it. He’ll have no job come morning once word from Harlan reaches the town’s ears, and relations will soon sour towards all dwarrow as a result. It’s an inevitable part of life. 

While they wait for Oin and Kili to return, Thorin helps Fili to the bedroom he shares with Kili, and then helps Fili out of his sodden and dirty clothes. Dis brings a wash basin and Thorin cleans Fili, head to toe, like a dwarfling of eight, rather than a young dwarrow of thirty-eight. Part of Fili knows this should be an embarrassment, but in the wake of such violence, it’s simply a comfort to have someone touch him with trust and care. And it’s not as though he could meaningfully object — his hands are too damaged to hold a wash rag. 

By the time Oin huffs and puffs his way through the front door, Fili is lying in bed with clean small clothes on. 

“Oh, lad. What’d they do to you?” Oin mutters. Thorin mercifully tells the tale again, sparing Fili the effort. 

Kili simply sits beside his brother, his hand resting a patch of unbruised skin. Kili’s touch is a balm against the pain of the world, and lifeline to grip as Oin carefully sets three of Fili’s broken fingers. Salves, bandages, splints, and poultices adorn over half of Fili’s body by the time the old healer has finished his work. 

“No sacking grain for you for at least a month,” he declares, though none of them are under any illusions about Fili returning to that job.

They give Fili and Kili a moment, the rest of them retreating to the living room, while Kili helps Fili into an undershirt and a pair of linen breeches. 

“What do you need, nadad?” Kili finally asks. “How can I help?”

Fili swallows, his bruised throat aching. “I want to watch Amad light the candles. I want to sing with them.”

Kili looks confused, so Fili goes on. “They hate us,” Fili says simply, and he knows the whole of the meaning isn’t lost on his brother. “Why should I give them the victory of taking who we are from us? I can rest later. But tonight is for family and rest, and by Mahal I’m not letting them take that, too.”

Kili nods, his gaze now sharp. The worry of earlier has been refined into fury, and Fili knows Kili will need his own time and space to make whatever he’s going to make from this.

“Come on, nadith. Dinner’s not getting any warmer,” Fili says.

Together, they totter slowly to the table and Fili sits.

“What are you doing up?” Dis demands.

Kili, his rage already to the point of boiling over, answers first. “Fili said he’s not going to let them take who we are from us, too. I think he’s right.”

Thorin nods, approval and pride at once, and Fili feels the warmth of that acknowledgement suffuse his body, dulling the edges of his pain momentarily. 

When they have said their goodbyes and Oin has gone, Thorin, Dis, Kili, and Fili gather around the dinner table. Dis lights the candles, the seven small lights that are a symbol of the seven fathers created by Mahal. They sing songs that resonate in their chests, deep and rumbling like the mountains, taught to them by their forebears who were taught by their forebears back through time. They break bread and drink wine, enjoying the warmth of home and the comfort of tradition. 

Fili knows that whatever happens, wherever they go next, these are the things that make a home, not the ground beneath their beds. The realization that no one can take these things from him, no matter how many of his pockets they check, is a relief beyond measure and some of the tension he’s carried from the fight ebbs away. 

A small blessing, part of a longer prayer Fili learned as a dwarfling under Balin’s tutelage, comes unbidden to his mind and he smiles, listening to the words in his mind. 

_Blessed is the Maker, Mahal, who has made me a dwarf._

Fili knows that he is indeed blessed.


End file.
